With the recent addition of the GitSync and Add Page by Form plugins along with the arrival of the Gantry 5 Framework to the Grav universe, 2017 holds even greater promise for (open) educators to benefit from Grav. With these new elements, not only will the setup of the multi-device friendly and collaborative Grav Course Hub be easier and quicker, but a whole new range of applications with Grav opens up in relation to open blogging and online OER authoring/sharing. Let’s start with the Grav Course Hub!

Since I first started exploring using Grav almost two years ago as an open and collaborative platform for the field of education, I have dreamed of a seamless 2-way sync of Grav site content to such services as GitHub or GitLab. Now, with the great work of the Trilby Media team (the people who created Grav) not only will this possible for myself but also the entire Grav community. By sponsoring the development of the open source Git Sync Plugin I was able to not only support the team behind Grav but also increase the audience for my own Course Hub skeleton package and consultation services about the use of Grav in the education space.

Grav Course Hub is an open source project intended to help tech-savvy instructors enhance the learning experience for their students by providing multi-device delivery and a collaborative workflow not present in their current Learning Management System (LMS). As an open platform under the full control of the instructor, a broader choice of online course components can be integrated into the Course Hub to help reach unmet pedagogical goals.

Built with the modern flat-file CMS Grav (https://getgrav.org/), the multi-device ready Grav Course Hub can partner with your existing LMS, where it serves as an alternative and customizable front-end to any required LMS elements for your students. With this approach, instructors have the freedom to move beyond the confines of the LMS while sensitive student data remains located within your institutional or organization’s LMS.

Content in Grav is stored and maintained as individual files rather than inside a database, so services such as GitHub and GitLab (which can be hosted on your own server) can be easily partnered with your Course Hub for open collaboration and version control. Being file-based also means that instructors have their choice of tools for editing their Course Hub content, and site updates can be performed in as little as one button press.

Although I’ve been in ‘heads-down’ mode with my SFU CMPT 363 User Interface Design course for the past two months, I recently tweeted some additional facts about the Grav Course Hub Project, and I thought I would share them here: